A girlie roadtrip to Horseshoe Bend

Sometimes a girlie trip is all you need and when said girlie trip involves seeing a sight as stunning as Horseshoe Bend it’s a definite bonus!

Last month my favourite blondie and I ventured out to the lively city of Las Vegas. We travel to the city that never sleeps every year for an annual girls trip and last month was our 6th trip to the famous strip.

Before heading out for a week of mahem, Aimee and I agreed to fit in a little U.S. road trip amongst the sunshine partying. Having massively enjoyed my Route 66 road trip last year I convinced Aimee to join me behind the wheel once again. So we rented the obvious, a convertible mustang and set out on a what ended up being a 24 hour adventure!

I am the typical consumer of a wanderlust instagram page especially when it comes to dedicated travel accounts and one account I love to follow is Bella Bucchiotti. After seeing a beautiful capture of her at Horseshoe Bend I knew I had to see the world wonder for myself and rather handily, it was pretty close to Vegas.

The drive from LV was just over 4 hours and although I was at first really apprehensive about driving on the right side of the road in an unfamiliar car the drive itself was so much fun. With a few fast food and snack stops along the way to nurse our raging hangovers and a back seat full of chettos (standard!) we headed east towards the Grand Canyon. The drive on this side of the states is beautiful especially when you’ve left the city roads behind and are able to enjoy the thrill of nipping in-between the heights and colours of the canyon itself.

Horseshoe bend was amazing, an incredible natural sight and a wondrous scene that really does take your breath away! The photos really say it all but the expanse of land and depth beneath your feet is bizarrely invigorating, the colours are so unique and the water below was the perfect blue break amongst the rich clay colours. By the time we reached the edge of the cliff however, we were positively pooped from heat exhaustion!

The walk to the look-out point for the bend from the carpark takes about 10 minutes on the way down and 15 minutes on the way back. Not a long time at all but in the heat of the desert it can feel like you’ve just run 10k! We arrived at Midday so the scorching temperature really did set us back, I am quite used to working out in the heat but this was something else! There is absolutely no shade during the walk or at the look-out itself so I highly highly recommend wearing a hat and taking a huge bottle of water. Aimee and I completely underestimated the heat and had a slither of water between us – BIG mistake (insert laughing/crying emoji!). The attraction is free as is the parking which is amazing, make sure you buy water before you arrive though as there is no option to buy water onsite.

After sweating more than you would in an hour’s bikram class we headed on to Lake Powell (via the nearest gas station where we both drank a gallon of water!) for a swim to cool down. I visited Lake Powell last October and loved it so was more than happy to head back. If you travel from Horseshoe Bay then you’ll pass the famous Utah sign too so as it was the first time Aimee had seen it we, naturally, we stopped for the obligatory tourist snap 😉

Lake Powell was as awesome as I remember but far busier than when I visited back in October. Lots of happy campers had set up for the summer so we meandered through the caravans and jumped in the water for a much needed cool down!

Had we have had more than one day to explore it would have been a great place to camp over for the night but alas, we had a pool party to get back to the next day 😉